Free Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] by Tempest Rising (html)

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    “Look,” I said. “I just found out about you guys last night. You really
gotta quit with the supernatural jargon, because none of it makes any sense to
me whatsoever.”
    He grinned and threw back his head to let loose a funny barking laugh
that was not what I expected. He was so smooth I would have imagined his
laugh to be more “smoky chuckle” than “tickled coyote.” I smiled back at him,
finally. The laugh made him less corporate bloodsucker and more nerdy chic.
    “Right,” he said. “Let’s start over. A glamour is a little technique
that we all use. It’s kind of like a Jedi mind trick. Basically, we nudge
people’s perception a bit, so they see or hear what we want them to.”
    “So, when you told Grizzie that she had heard of you, she believed you.”
    “Exactly. All we have to do is back up the suggestion, and the human
does the rest. It’s the nature of the human mind to fill in gaps in its
perception. If it sees something that doesn’t make sense or learns something
that can’t actually be true, instead of doubting what it’s seen or heard, it
will fill in a story to make everything reasonable.”
    “So, can you guys glamour one another?” I asked, intrigued.
    He paused, considering his response. “In rare circumstances, yes.
Normally we can easily feel a glamour. But sometimes we don’t.” He gave me a
wily little grin. “We like to think of ourselves as far superior to humans, but
there are times when even our highly evolved brains want to fill in gaps, as
well.”
    I mulled over Ryu’s words, giving my bottom lip a little chew as I
concentrated. He didn’t interrupt me, just waited patiently, which I
appreciated.
    “So, what do you need from me?” I asked, finally.
    “Oh, just some information. We know you didn’t have anything to do with
Jakes’s murder, but I need to ask you about the circumstances surrounding your
finding the body. Also, I was thinking that since you’re a native you can tell
me what the humans are doing about the murder. Like, what they think happened
and what information they have. Finally, I want to hear about the time Jakes
spent living here. What he was doing, that sort of thing. Or if anything
strange happened in that time. Were there other unfamiliar people or beings
around, besides Peter?”
    “Oh, okay,” I said, figuring he would want to get out of Rockabill as
soon as possible. So, once again, I ignored my poor, repressed libido—which was
currently clamoring for me to lure Ryu behind the counter and knock him out
with an unabridged dictionary in order to make him mine—and went ahead and started
in on what he wanted to know. “Well, as for finding the body, there isn’t
really much—”
    Ryu held up his hands, interrupting me. He tried to look professional,
but there was a quirk to his lips suggesting things that could only be filed,
in a professional sense, under sexual harassment. “Do you mind if we do this
later? I’m not at my best during the daytime, and I’m tired from the drive.
I’ve rented one of those little cottages, by where Peter stayed, for a few
days. I’d like to get settled and clean up before we get to work.”
    I couldn’t really imagine him getting any cleaner, nor did I really want
to contemplate how much better his “best” was. I shrugged my assent, hoping
that whatever kind of supernatural being he was, he couldn’t sense my libido planning
things that might have made even Grizelda blush.
    Unfortunately, Ryu gave me a smile that told me (a) he knew exactly what
I was thinking and (b) he would see whatever my libido ponied up and raise it,
fivefold.
    “Great. I’ll pick you up at six tonight. We can get something to eat and
chat over dinner.”
    “Um, okay,” I said, externally quite calm.
    Shit, shit, shit, was my internal line of thought. What
the fuck am I going to wear?
    “Wait.” I had just remembered something. “You don’t know where I live.”
    “Sure I do,” he said, slyly.
    I thought